I ruined my gravel bike by trying to make it ‘progressive’ - Don’t make the same mistake as me!

The bulk of my job here at Cyclingnews is to test things. There’s spotting pro tech and being an eagle-eyed race reporter, trying to work out what X rider is using at Y race and if it’s significant, but mostly it’s seeing if certain tech innovations are actually any good. Often, this takes the form of new product releases, which get tested in isolation, but sometimes it’s simply a case (to paraphrase) of mucking about and finding out what happens. 

Given how much gravel race bikes have changed in recent years I decided I wanted to see what happens to what is a relatively ‘normal’ gravel bike - my long term Fairlight Secan 2.5 - if I modified it to include all the on-trend race components: Very wide tyres, narrow bars, and suspension forks. I’ve tried each in isolation, and they have their merits, but ultimately, despite it being faster, I am going to retire this setup as soon as I get five minutes to swap it back to a more factory spec. In short, unless you’re racing (and I mean actually racing, not coming 456th in a gravel sportive), then leave the crazy setups to the pros; you’ll have more fun, I promise. 

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The experimental setup

The ‘mess around’ part was pretty simple, or so I thought. Just bolt on a suspension fork, fit as wide a set of tyres as you can, add some narrow bars and away you go. Luckily, the Fairlight Secan is a very easy canvas on which to paint one’s ideas, what with fully external hose routing, relatively wide tyre clearances, and generally just being pretty normal. No funny business, which is part of the reason I gave it nearly full marks in my review. 

The forks were a set of RockShox Rudy XPLR, with 30mm of travel, a lockout switch on the shoulder, and clearance to take a 2.0” mountain bike tyre, which I’ll get to momentarily. This was the first thing I swapped, and initially, it made the bike feel as if I was suddenly falling off the back of it, so I then swapped the setback seatpost for a 0mm setback, inline option, which helped enormously.

The problem was, this more forward position meant the hoods were too close to my body, so my standard 90mm stem (sue me, I have a short torso and long elegant legs) for a mighty 130mm Pro option. Given that the fork slackens the head angle and makes the stem even more positive-rise, I then had to shunt the cockpit down a couple of spacers to get it into something approaching my ‘normal’ position.

Ok, so we’re at a point where the fork has been added and the position heavily modified. May as well go all in and fit the ludicrously narrow Lambda X-Wing bars that I ran on the road last year, which measure as little as 22cm between the hoods. I didn't foresee any negative impacts here... Fortunately, they didn’t mess with the reach enough for any additional mods to be required for the setup.

Luckily, the tyres were a breeze, to a point. I initially fitted a pair of 2” Continental RaceKing XC tyres, but found out pretty swiftly that, while the rear triangle could just about accommodate such a big tyre, the Shimano GRX Di2 front derailleur was basically touching the rubber, and what with it being a steel frame with a lovely level of flex, on pedalling it rubbed, so the rear was swapped out for a 45c Vittoria Mezcal. The Rudy XPLR fork had no issues up front, though there’s not much more room to go larger without having no room for mud. It’s a little ugly running a larger front tyre, but it’s all I could manage, so away we go.

I also installed the Fulcrum Sharq wheels that I tested last year. They were great but really stood out in crosswinds, and I wanted a set of wheels that would allow me to confidently stay in an aero position as often as possible, so these fit the bill. 

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The handling implications

What happens, then, if you decide you want to emulate the pros? (Yes, this means you, Dylan Johnson, I’m sorry.) Well, I’ll preface this quickly with the fact that I think each mod has its benefits, but collectively, they made the bike feel pretty terrible. 

First up, running a suspension fork on a frame not initially designed to take one affects the geometry. The front end gets higher, so you have to modify your position, as I’ve already mentioned, but the head angle gets slacker too. I loved the standard handling of the Secan, and adding a fork made the front end feel wallowy and slow, with quite a noticeable amount of wheel-flop, whereby the wheel wants to turn itself over beyond a certain angle of steering input. This is compounded by the front-end bob that suspension gives when riding out of the saddle, which really doesn’t play well with the handlebars. 

This brings me onto the narrow bars; the slacker handling at the front was certainly compounded by the narrowness of them. I don’t hold all that much truck with the theory that you need to run super wide bars on gravel ‘for better control' but at this extreme degree of narrowness, I really noticed the lack of leverage versus even something traditionally narrow for gravel like a 38cm bar. On steep, techy climbs, it made picking a line much harder, and out of the saddle, it massively compounded the wallowy front end in a way it never did on the road where I ran it with unchanged geometry. 

I can absolutely get on board with the wide tyres though, regardless of setup. Our own testing has proved them to be faster, they’re more comfortable, they give better control on rough ground, they cope better with mud, and they look wicked. 

Despite ruining the handling, the outcome was that the bike was noticeably faster. My average speeds, especially on rough sections and on faster road segments, were greatly improved by the two-hit combo of a far more aerodynamic position and the ability to just rumble over bumps in a way I was never able to before. But to what end? I’m not racing. I like going fast, but ultimately, the experience was worse. 

What would I keep?

While I am an advocate for narrow bars on the road and would happily use those Lambda bars on tarmac in certain contexts, I did not enjoy them for gravel riding. I missed the lack of leverage on punchy, out-of-the-saddle climbs, and on techy terrain, they made the steering feel vague in a way they didn’t really on tarmac. If I was racing, then I’d fit them, as the speed gains were tangible, but for a bike I ride for fun? No chance. 

As for the suspension fork? I am certainly on board with gravel suspension, but only for bikes that have been specifically designed to take a suspension fork. I recently spotted a new Canyon Grail online that appears to be specced with one from the factory, and I am certainly curious to see how this rides. I suspect far better than any retrofit setup.

Big tyres are here to stay. If I could fit 2” tyres to the Secan, I’d leave them on there, but for now, 45c will have to do. While this latest Canyon is probably going to upset the apple cart by introducing suspension to gravel race bikes, I actually think if gravel bike design continues as it is currently doing towards wider tyres, the need for suspension will essentially vanish. On something like the YT Szepter, the suspension really helped, but that bike came with comparatively narrow tyres. 

Yes, suspension will help you rumble over rocky terrain, and gravel race courses may get more rad as bike design progresses (as it has in cross-country), but at what point do we just admit we want a mountain bike?